


Life Lived in Threes

by inspiration_assaulted



Series: Fractured Lives [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, BAMF John, Criminal Network, M/M, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2014-01-22
Packaged: 2018-01-09 16:51:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1148486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inspiration_assaulted/pseuds/inspiration_assaulted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim Watson-Moriarty died on the top of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. Sherlock Holmes died on the pavement below. Now, with the help of Sebastian Moran, John must put his life back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Three Months to Acceptance

John twisted at his ring. He’d done so almost continuously in the week since Jim’s death. He refused to take it off, even though his skin was raw and torn beneath the snug metal.

He hoped it would scar.

Baz caught his hands, holding them still. He must have been out of it to not hear the large man coming up the stairs. He looked up into Baz’s sad green eyes, then the man was gone, down the stairs to fetch another box.

The sniper had spent every night since the Fall in 221B, so John had finally just asked him to move in. He couldn’t handle the emptiness, the ghosts of genius lingering in the air of the flat. He hadn’t expected to lose them both at once, he wasn’t prepared. He couldn’t deal with putting Sherlock’s things in order, so Baz had boxed them all up and put them in his room.

He’d told Mrs. Hudson Baz was moving in, but no one would touch Sherlock’s room. Then he’d made himself a cup of tea and pointedly ignored all her comments about Mrs. Turner-next-door’s married ones.

His tea quaked in little ripples as he tried not to remember that he’d been a “married one” just days before.

He and Baz weren’t like that. They were the oldest of friends, having known each other since before they could walk. The Watsons and the Morans had lived next door to each other in a suburb on the outskirts of London. Little Johnny and Baz had grown up constantly sleeping in each other’s beds. In Uni it was more common to find the two of them plus Jimmy slumped in a pile on a single bed than anywhere else. After his capture and escape in Kandahar, John had spent most of his nights in Baz’s bunk, whether the Colonel was there or not. Some of the officers had taken the piss out of him for it, but everyone knew better than to anger the man who’d taken out eleven Taliban with three bullets and a knife.

Sleeping alone in the awful beige bedsit, and later in 221B, was one of the hardest things John had done in his life.

So they both curled up together on John’s bed every night, and they both tried hard not to miss the small, warm body that should have been on the other side of John. Sometimes, in the darkest, coldest part of the night, Baz’s arms were all that kept him together.

He sat still and silent in the middle of stacks of cardboard boxes that Baz had moved in while he’d been lost in his head. He assumed his old friend was across town getting the last few.

* * *

 

The British Government showed up three days later, when there were still a few odds and ends laying in boxes, waiting for a home. He sat in Sherlock’s chair with a cup of tea he’d helped himself to, stirring casually as John limped down the stairs late that morning. He and Baz always slept in, since they didn’t work anymore.

Jimmy had been a morning person.

“Are you here for Sherlock’s things?” he asked shortly, cutting off whatever smooth comment Britain had decided to greet him with. He looked taken aback. He’d soon learn that Doctor Watson had died with Sherlock on the pavement, with Jimmy on the rooftop.

Here’s Johnny.

“No, not quite yet,” he recovered. “I merely wished to see how you were holding up, Doctor Watson.”

“Well I’m not sitting alone on his bed planning on offing myself, if that’s what you mean,” he grunted, stepping carefully around Mycroft to pluck the dagger out of the mantle, just the barest hint of threat in his posture. He dropped into his chair heavily and adjusted his knee- the damn thing still acting up- laying the dagger down on the side table.

Mycroft blinked.

“No, I have noticed you aren’t alone.” He gestured to the remaining boxes. “For someone who was loyal very quickly, you seem to recover very quickly as well.”

John didn’t dignify that with a response.

“You invited Sebastian Moran to move in with you after a week, during which he stayed with you every night,” he continued after a moment. “Colonel Moran’s records seem…curiously lacking after his discharge from the Army. May I ask how you know him?”

“Old friends,” John bit out. Baz chose that moment to come down the stairs into the living room. He paused taking in the scene before him: the British Government sipping his tea, Johnny’s closed off face, the dagger he was now twirling skillfully between his fingers. He shrugged.

“Morning,” he said cheerfully, slapping John on the back as he passed. John grimaced as it jarred the shoulder he’d been shot in not too long ago. “Sorry,” he smiled ruefully. “Got any food in?”

“Bacon on the top shelf. Eggs in the door.” He knocked Baz’s side lightly with the hilt of the dagger. “I want fried. And toast.” Baz chuckled.

Mycroft raised an eyebrow.

“Mycroft Holmes, Sebastian Moran,” he gestured carelessly, going through the sham introduction. “Baz, Iceman.” He sure hoped Mycroft wasn’t stupid enough to miss his reference to the name Irene had told him.

_Do you know what Jim Moriarty calls you?_

By the slight tightening of the Government’s mouth, he knew he was right.

“Am I finally introduced to the good Doctor Watson’s husband?” Of course he hadn’t bought the story about the ring belonging to his father. John almost laughed at the way he was trying to force the pieces together to flesh out the story. Ring plus no good with girlfriends equals husband. Married plus man who shares his bed equals Baz as his partner. He was trying to deduce a relationship that was undeducable.

“No.” Another eyebrow twitch.

“Oh?” John could see the judgment in his eyes. The Good Doctor Watson a cheater? A dirty adulterer?

He tossed the dagger across the room with barely a glance. It stuck deep in the plaster, dead-center in the left eye of the garish yellow smiley face Sherlock had sprayed on the wall in a fit of boredom. Mycroft’s eyes widened appreciably.

“My husband is dead.” Mycroft whipped his head back around to look at John. “Mr. Watson put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Blew the back out of his skull. Forgive me if I find suicide a distasteful option, to say the least.”

“My condolences,” the Government murmured. He drained his tea and set the cup aside, rising with a tap of his ever-present umbrella. “I believe I have taken up enough of your morning. Please, do not hesitate to call me if the need arises.”

Then he was gone and John’s emotionless mask shattered. Fried eggs and toast grew cold on the table as John cried bitter tears into Baz’s shirt.

* * *

 

Three months passed before John could walk without limping. Three months before he could put the hated crutch back in the closet. Three months before John could begin the long process of moving on with his life.

It was a painful, bitter three months. Countless hours lost in his head because something reminded him of Jimmy. Long nights staring at the dark ceiling. The early mornings Baz had woken them both up with his recurring nightmare and they’d just held onto each other in the grey silence. Rivers of tears shed because he’d caught a glimpse of a newspaper headline about the Fall. The worst were the ones claiming Moriarty had never existed.

John twisted his ring until he bled trying to remind himself that it had all been real.

Then Thomas Pearson had collapsed on their sofa and started bleeding out.

John had left his cane where it fell, jumping into action to put pressure on wounds and start stitching. An hour and a half later, Pearson was no longer in danger of dying immediately and John needed to restock his kit.

But he knee never twinged, and his hand didn’t shake, and he could breathe freely for the first time in three months.

Pearson wasn’t one of the small players, lingering on the edge of the web. He was one of the originals, his place was near the center. He may have never seen Jim’s face, but he’d been trusted enough to hear his voice.

Johnny had done a few puzzles with Pearson, back in his days as the Artist. Pearson was an intel man, a professional middleman, a collection point for moles in various levels of the bureaucracy. Sometimes the moles turned into ugly little traitors. That was when they became beautiful art.

No one knows the human body like a doctor.

Baz nearly dropped the shopping when he saw Pearson asleep on the couch, wrapped up tight in white cotton bandages and an orange shock blanket John had dug out from between the sofa and the wall. He looked at John, who gave him a facial shrug over his mug of tea.

What Pearson told them later, between spoonfuls of chicken soup, left them without any doubts.

The web was falling. Some level of self-destruction had been expected without Moriarty at the center, holding all the threads together, but this was something more. A single mole had reported he thought his cover might have been blown, and two days later Pearson barely escaped an ambush in his flat with his life.

This was outside interference. Someone was trying to take down the network, and fast. Johnny was not about to stand by and let that happen.

He and Baz stayed awake for long hours that night, speaking quietly in the dark.

“I can’t do it alone,” John pointed out. “I’m not Jim.” Speaking his name still hurt, but the lingering adrenaline helped.

“You don’t have to,” Baz answered, “but you’re a good puzzler when you put your mind to it, and I know how to set things up on the practical end.”

“And the contacts? I fell out of the web two years ago.” They were both quiet for a moment, thinking.

“Pearson,” Baz said eventually. “I know some of the other middle men, but Pearson’s our best bet for a contact, and he’ll be the only one who knows who you are. He’s good with intel. Plus, he’s a nice guy and I’d hate to have to eliminate him for already knowing you.” Silence fell again. It was a good plan.

“And the Artist?” He felt Baz’s silent chuckles shake the bed.

“I think the return of the Artist is long overdue. You’ve lived a double life well, Johnny. Up for a triple life?”

For the first time in three months, John smiled.


	2. Three Men in the Center

After a very thorough sweep for bugs the Government might have decided to leave as parting gifts, Johnny, Baz, and Pearson sat down to tea, biscuits, and crime.

“Tell me what’s going on now.” John stepped into the leadership role well enough. Without Jimmy to hold everything down, the web would fall to chaos, Baz was right about that. London, hell Britain entirely, would burn without a King to hold the throne. John was their best actor, the best chance to be the Crown, hidden in plain sight. Pearson would become the Voice, handing down orders from the Crown. Baz would keep his old role as the Arm, putting things together on the practical.

In the meantime, the Artist would come out to play on dark moonless nights in basements and back alleys.

“We can’t keep the whole thing afloat as it is now,” Pearson said reasonably. “It’s too big for us. Some of it’s got to be cut off.”

“Sacrifice those bits it to whoever’s trying to take it down. Throw them a bone,” Baz suggested. John agreed.

“What have we got that I don’t want to deal with?” he asked. Some parts of the web he’d always found…distasteful. They were usually the parts Jim had inherited from the last criminal emperors, ones who found themselves as masterpieces, displayed as an announcement and a warning.

“Drugs?”

“Only the ones who sell bad quality or contaminated product. If people are stupid enough to take them, let them, but no more mercury poisoning or whatever from my suppliers.”

“Human trafficking?”

“Oh, god,” he murmured. “End that, as soon as possible. I don’t care how much of the network it makes up or how much money it brings, I want nothing to do with it.” Baz nodded, and Pearson looked relieved.

“Terrorists?” Baz suggested after a long moment. John let his eyes slip closed, hand falling to rub at the phantom pains in his knee.

“No more guaranteed support. They have to come to me with their plans and if I support them then I’ll help.”

“Do we want people to know what happened to Jim?” Baz asked eventually. John thought long and hard about that.

“No details,” he decided. “They’ll address me as Doctor Moriarty, as is my right. Let them draw their own conclusions. I hold the Crown now, there’s no need for a power struggle.”

And so the meeting carried on. Late that night, nearing midnight, the message would go out down the threads of the web.

The Crown lives, long live the Crown.

* * *

 

They liquidated Pearson’s old flat the next day and moved him into 221C. They swept it for government bugs, since Jim had managed to get in there to plant the shoes that began the Fall, but it was clean.

Mrs. Hudson was overjoyed to have a new renter.

* * *

 

Johnny looked over his reflection critically. He’d dug out a very well-hidden box and put on the clothes inside. He’d put on weight since Kandahar, but working out with Baz had gotten rid of that. He was back in his slim, toned silhouette he’d had as the Artist. The old clothes fit perfectly.

Slim black denim was tucked into heavy black boots. Black shirt with a hood, pulled up to hide his blond hair, with a tailored black jacket over top. Black leather gloves like a second skin on his hands.

The only bit of color was the mask over his face, the color of blood. The glossy surface shone like enamel, reflected on the surface of his favorite knives.

The Artist was back.

* * *

 

Pearson brought them the morning paper and the reports. John glanced half-heartedly over the rugby scores from the day before as Pearson told him how the Outsider, the name they had given the force trying to get to them, had taken the bait. The human traffickers were in custody, awaiting trial.

They all seemed to think they would get off, that he would save them.

Poor them.

“There’s a request from the Taliban as well.”

There was a noisy little bugger in the House of Commons that was pushing for unmanned drone strikes on Taliban-controlled villages. Never mind that they villages didn’t care who controlled them, as long as they had crops to harvest. Never mind that the Taliban didn’t really live in the villages, and the strikes would only kill poor Afghani farmers.

John looked over the MP’s file. He was having an affair with his wife’s sister, using taxpayer money to buy her jewels and sends her kids to posh schools.

“Blow the sex scandal wide open. Focus on his wrongful use of public funds allocated to him for his campaign. His support in the Commons’ll disappear.”

Pearson nodded, a short, quick action like a civilian’s salute, and left.

But not before snatching a piece of bacon from the plate on the counter.

* * *

 

“John, we believe you may be in danger.”

Honestly, didn’t the Government have his own house, where he could sit in his own armchair and drink his own probably far superior brand of tea, where John didn’t have to see him?

“How’s that, Mycroft?” John asked, cutting himself a slice off the cake in the fridge, a tribute to Sherlock’s favorite insult. Sometimes Baz baked things when he was bored.

“For three months after…the events at St. Bartholomew’s, Moriarty’s network was silent.”

“Maybe he was grieving, just like the rest of us,” John pointed out.

“Perhaps. However, he’s begun to move again.”

“You think he might try to come after me?” John affected a state of shock and surprise. “Why? He already got to Sherlock, what would he want with me?”

“James Moriarty is a madman.” John didn’t appreciate that. His late husband was _almost_ mad, not certifiable, thank you. “Who can say why he would do anything?”

_Why do we do anything? Because we’re bored._

“Right, well.” John set his half-finished cake aside, looking unsettled enough to have lost his appetite. “Thanks for the warning, I guess. Anything else I should know? People to watch for?”

“Not that we know at the moment. John, I will do what I can to protect you.” Oh, the irony! Britain himself protecting the Crown of the greatest criminal empire in his borders! “It is the least I can do.” John’s expression turned cold, closed off.

The least he could do, since he killed John’s geniuses. However indirectly.

* * *

 

The text came to what he called his “civilian mobile.”

**_Come to Barts morgue? Could use the help. GL_ **

It was almost too funny. Here was DI Lestrade, the man who had barely escaped the Fall with his job, still calling in outside help for an odd case.

John stumped into the morgue (he stilled used his cane in the outside world, still used the hated crutch as a prop) and had to try hard not to let his glee show on his face.

The body was one of his. He was a minor crime lord, one who had tried to seize more power than he deserved. The Crown had gotten the message and set the Artist out to relay a message of his own.

Lestrade looked like he was about to be sick. John raised a hand to cover his mouth, just in case his smile got the better of him.

“Molly says he bled out, but she can’t tell where.” The DI didn’t bother with a greeting, diving right into business. John snapped on the latex gloves and started to inspect his own masterpiece.

“The guy’s got some skill with a knife,” he muttered, inspecting the hands that had the skin peeled ever so carefully off, not a nick to the muscle beneath. He turned his attention to the cuts strategically placed over the rest of the body. “It’s too shallow on the hands, not enough to bleed out. The rest of these cuts, they’ve gone in deep, but they’ve only pricked veins.”

He shuffled around the table to get a good look at the deep cut on the right thigh.

“Except that one…” He pried it open. “Femoral artery. Your man bleed out here.”

Molly looked at him in amazement. Lestrade just nodded and wrote on his notepad.

“That’s not any one-off murder,” John remarked, stripping the gloves off inside-out into the bin. “It’s too precise, too practiced.”

“Yeah, that’s what were afraid of,” Lestrade replied, flipping the notepad shut. “Might be a serial killer. There’s a mark, might be his signature.” He gestured, and Molly produced a glossy picture of the skin on the vic’s lower back.

There, dead-center on the spine, was the mark of the Artist, stamped on in black and red ink. A black outline of a dagger, point down on the spine, with a solid black crown overlaid. The blade of the knife was blood red, the same color as the Artist’s mask.

“Jesus,” John muttered. “Find him quick, yeah?”

“We’ll try to.”

* * *

 

“Get me a written explanation of what Vasiliya wants to do here first. I don’t like having Russians around, they always think they can threaten me.” Pearson nodded, tapping away at his mobile. John was reminded strongly of the nameless assistant Mycroft had, the one who was always in the cars that picked him up.

“You made the front page, Johnny,” Baz called after he shut the door. He slapped the paper down in front of John. The headline was about the Artist and his killings. Johnny enjoyed their panic.

“They found my note,” he murmured, reading through the article. He’d left a card in his last masterpiece’s mouth with a few words written in black ink, all the letters shadowed with red. Part of it was to make sure the Met and the media knew his proper name. The _Times_ had taken to calling him the Stamped Skinner, after the signature stamp he used on his masterpieces’ backs and the way he skinned their hands, but John thought the name was tacky.

The other part of his motivation was to show off.

**_I haven’t killed an innocent yet.  
-the Artist_ **

He wondered how long it would have taken Sherlock to find the Artist, or if he’d be able to trace the killings back to him at all.

“The Czech liaison’s getting antsy. We need to move him, change up the channels he uses to reach us,” Johnny ordered, tossing the paper aside. Pearson nodded, taking John’s words as his cue to continue with the morning reports.

The Crown’s work was never done.


	3. Three Plates at the Table

John was on his way back from the bank when he knew his wallet was being lifted. He followed the small, dirty street boy to an alley, smiling and nodding in approval when he noticed it was one without any CCTV surveillance.

The kid was slick.

The boy was looking through the wallet’s contents as John approached on noiseless feet. The kid jumped when John grabbed his shoulder, then he found himself pressed against the wall. Johnny pressed a switchblade to his lips.

“I can give you three nostrils faster than you can blink. Try anything and I kill you,” he growled. Blue eyes, set deep in a dirty face, went wide.

“Artist?” the kid whispered. Johnny smirked.

“ _Very_ good,” he praised. “But now I have to deal with you. Can’t have people running around willy-nilly knowing the Artist’s face, after all.” The kid gulped. “How about you come back with me to my flat, and we’ll figure out what to do from there? I do hate killing kids.”

Despite his act, John really did hate having to deal with kids. He hoped the kid would be smart and smooth and slick enough that he could find a use for him in the web. Sherlock had had his homeless network, why shouldn’t the Crown have eyes of his own on the streets?

He pushed the kid into the shower, tossed him one of his old jumpers and a pair of Baz’s running shorts, made him a fry up, and watched him eat the whole thing before he asked any questions.

* * *

 

The kid’s name was Ian, he was ten, and he was from Dublin. He’d run away from an orphanage at the age of five, living on the streets and moving through the big cities. He was clever, noticed things most kids, most adults even, didn’t. Said it came from life on the streets.

Once he was clean, John realized he looked like a mix between him and Jimmy, and it hit him hard in the chest. Bright, Irish accent, thin frame, dark hair, blue eyes.

* * *

 

“What’s up with the kid, Johnny?”

“Tried to lift my wallet this morning.” John didn’t take his eyes of the sleeping boy on the couch.

“And you didn’t kill him right off?” John shrugged.

“He headed straight for a spot with no surveillance. He’s slick.”

They were quiet a moment while Baz put away the shopping. He made himself a cup of tea and joined John in watching the boy.

“His name’s Ian. Ran away from a Dublin orphanage five years ago.” Baz grunted.

“He looks like Jimmy,” he said quietly. John pinched his eyes shut.

“He’s got my eyes, Baz.” It was no more than a whisper.

“Christ…”

* * *

 

By the time two weeks had passed, adoption papers were being pushed through, with the help of the web’s satellite in Ireland. A little single bed fit into a corner of the upstairs bedroom. They set the table for three. Mrs. Hudson loved having a child around, and she treated him like a grandson, spoiling him rotten with fresh-baked buiscuts.

Ian Sebastian Watson-Moriarty slotted into their lives easily.

He went running with his Uncle Baz and learned how to handle a gun, to sit still and silent, to be unseen in the most obvious of places. Pearson taught him maths and basic computer code, how to get over and around firewalls and protections while leaving them intact. His Dad taught him Arabic, Farsi, French, German, and Latin, plus a little Greek, knife skills, and acting. On his eleventh birthday, he received an unregistered revolver, which he tucked under his mattress, a top-of-the-line laptop, and a switchblade.

He was quick in picking up the clues. He knew John and Baz weren’t together, but he never asked about the Jim they sometime spoke about. He didn’t ask about the locked door leading off the living room. If he heard John cry sometimes late at night, he didn’t say anything.

Johnny, Baz, and Ian went to dinner at Angelo’s and observed the people around them for practice. They played football in the park and counted the number of CCTV cameras with eyes on them. They played a happy, if unconventional, family: the widower, the mysterious Colonel, and the former street urchin turned innocent eleven-year-old.

* * *

 

Ian knew a lot about the streets. It was beyond easy to smuggle people in and out when they looked like vagrants.

The Crown had come to have a good relationship with the shipping companies that crossed the Channel.

“Czech liaison got out of his flat just before it blew. He’s banged up but alive, says he’s hiding out on the streets of Dresden. He wants to know what to do know.”

“Shit.”

“Dad!”

“Sorry, Ian,” John smiled at his son.

The Outsider had been moving across the Continent, hunting down the liaisons. He’d managed to take out France and Spain. Germany was in hiding after his death had been faked, and Italy was being sheltered by a branch of the Roman mob. God bless Italians and their strange notions of family.

Czech was the latest target. The Outsider had chased him out of Prague to a secondary location in Liberec. He’d set the liaison’s flat with explosives. John’s man had noticed something off and ran for the back door just in time. He’d been hiding on the streets as a vagrant for two days.

“Arrange for him to be moved to Hamburg and notify Saloukczy.” The Czech network wasn’t big or important, but he had a good relationship with it and the leader, Saloukczy. Pearson gave his signature sharp nod and headed off.

“Damnit!” John burst out as soon as he was gone. Ian jumped and Baz raised an eyebrow. “How does he keep finding them?!”

Baz said nothing, but he tossed a glance toward the locked door behind him. John’s eyes went wide.

“You don’t think…?”

“The Outsider has to be a genius. There’s no evidence of it being a network, so he’s only one person. One genius, working alone, tearing down Moriarty’s web. Why not Sherlock?”

“He’s dead!”

“It’s easy enough to fake a death, remember Irene? We’ve done it, we do it all the time,” justified Baz. Ian picked up a book, studiously ignoring them.

“So, what, he faked his death to protect me and now he’s out there trying to get rid of the network to keep us safe before he comes back?” Baz shrugged, but nodded.

“It’s just what I think. I’ll set out an order to watch for a tale, pale guy with light eyes. He could have done anything with his hair by now.”

John dropped into his chair, head spinning at the thought. If Sherlock had faked his death, and he had seemed awfully picky about where John stood just to watch him jump, then could Jimmy be out there? If Sherlock came back, would Jimmy?

“Give the order. Make it look like he’s succeeding. I want the Outsider to think he’s won. If it is Sherlock I want him back in the open as soon as possible.”

“Why are you doing this?” Baz looked at him in confusion.

“Jim,” was his only explanation. Baz turned away, but not before John caught the edge of pity and grief in his pale green eyes.

* * *

 

Reports came in every few days. Another liaison targeted, another piece of the web “removed,” another sighting of the tall pale fellow. There was no more doubt in any of their minds that the Outsider was Sherlock Holmes.

On the home front, John’s people started to whisper in the British Government’s ear. Clear Sherlock’s name. Get rid of Richard Brook. Bring back James Moriarty.

Mycroft Holmes was not the island he thought he was.

Within a month and a half, Sherlock Holmes was a proper genius again. Richard Brook was proved to be a false name. James Moriarty was real.

But Johnny had his thumb in some pies too.

The whole incident had been pinned on Kitty Riley, the overenthusiastic exposé writer. James Moriarty was a scapegoat, a nobody, as much a victim of Ms. Riley’s thirst for power as Sherlock Holmes had been.

Mycroft Holmes was apparently throwing fits over that, but John’s methods were airtight, built on years of false information laid down by Jimmy himself.

It helped that Kitty Riley had been found dead three months after the Fall, an apparent suicide.

A marriage certificate went into the system as well, dated to the moment they had met at the pool. Records changed to accommodate Doctor John Hamish Watson-Moriarty’s change in marital status.

The Government stopped dropping by unannounced to drink their tea.

***

“DAD! THERE’S A NOTE FOR YOU!”

John let out a wordless grunt of acknowledgement as he shut off the shower. He wrapped himself up in his old dressing gown, blue with white stripes, toweling his hair as he wandered toward the sitting room. Ian didn’t look up from his laptop as he passed. Pearson had set him to writing the code for a new virus, practice for his skills. His son pointed to a mug of tea and the envelope beside it.

John dropped the mug when he saw the name.

“Dad?”

“Get Pearson,” he croaked. He pulled out his secure mobile, mashing Baz’s number without a thought.

_“Moran.”_

“Get home now.”

_“Johnny?”_

“NOW!”

John collapsed into the nearest chair, hands shaking. He traced the careful letters inked onto the paper. Black ink, sharp edges. Handwriting he would know anywhere.

**_To Johnny-Boy_ **


End file.
